Mario Gottardi, a prolific figure both as an architect and as an interior  designer, born in Venice in 1913 and graduated in 1939 at the Politecnico di Milano, where he moved his first steps. The 1950s and 1960s and 1970s are the ones that see it most active from the point of view mainly operating in Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna, with a view to international incursions.

This exhibition is an opportunity to discoveran exceptional designer, who makes the measure its stylistic figure: a balance that does not mean repetitiveness, but that applies the domain of the line to a varied range of architectural and interior solutions and which, starting from rationalist style from which he is clearly influenced, reinterprets and re-implements them following on the one hand the contemporary cultural trends and on the other the needs of practical and concrete in the use of spaces and above all of objects and accessories in which he expresses his most creative side.

"It is felt in villas, where constructive rigor is never separated from a sensitivity

volumetric and spatial as well as in residential buildings, where the housing need does not conditions the wise use of balance and space."

- "The Venetian roots, the lagoon light echo in Gottardi's work. The skilful use of the solids and voids, the fluidity of the line creates  that musicality sung by the concrete armed, wood and steel. If the design grammar of the building must take into account the account of certain rules, the design grammar of the furnishing object

enjoys that creative freedom that reveals the most intimate dimension of the artist".

Care in the choice of materials and attention to detail, in constant and creative tension and constructive pragmaticity, accompany him in all his rich production ranging from urban planning to restoration, from public buildings and private, naval, hotel, private and theatrical furnishings, to which it combines university teaching, a role he interprets as being the master of a great shop.

The exhibition La misura e la grazia nell'abitare by Mario Gottardi presents a rich photographic and design documentation that testifies to the main orders that and will also be enriched by the video by Umberto Corni, created by specifically for the occasion. The restoration works carried out in the early 1950s of historic buildings

including Palazzo Nero and Palazzo Contarini delle Figure on the Grand Canal, also in Venice the interior and furnishings of the Hotel Bauer Grunwald designed in 1951. In 1958, the urban planning of Piazzale Roma and in 1965 the church of S. Pietro Martire in Cinisello Balsamo. Between 1966 and 1969 he was in charge of the project for the new Shell Grand Hotel Torre di Madesimo and in 1968 dedicated itself to the construction of the theater and Cultural San Babila of Milan. In the 1970s, international orders arrived, including the planning of marmaria, kiris  north and aksu east tourist complexes  in Turkey. 

He also participates in many competitions in different years and wins important public commissions for the turbonaves Cristoforo Colombo (1953), Leonardo da Vinci (1958) and Michelangelo (1962), of which he made part of the furnishings. Tireless and with the usual acute vision of the project continues to work also in the nineties in Milan with the renovations headquarters of the Insurance Alliance in Viale Luigi Sturzo and the offices of the Zurich group in Piazza Carlo Erba and the construction of the sesto parish complex San Giovanni.

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